


Why am I like this?

by stateofdreamin



Series: fics inspired by songs [3]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Amy Centric, F/M, Song fic, amy's life, angst but not really, anxiety and ocd, bi amy, growing UP?, the other characters are more or less just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 21:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17774168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofdreamin/pseuds/stateofdreamin
Summary: It's like I'm looking down from the ceiling aboveNever in the moment, never giving enough(or, snippets of Amy's life inspired by one of my favorite songs)





	Why am I like this?

**Author's Note:**

> do i ever write fics not inspired by songs? no ma'am i do not
> 
> inspired by: why am i like this - orla gartland

**Last night I smoke a cigarette**   
**My dad would have been so upset**

She didn't fully know how she came into the realization that smoking really helps with her anxiety, or how she got the half empty pack of Marlboro that's currently in her pocket, but she doesn't complain. It's not like she had gotten out of her way to get cigarettes, but she vaguely remembers a friend (more like an acquaintance) saying something about how she was gonna stop smoking, and pushed the the pack into Amy's hands despite her protests. After Kylie had found out, she had told Amy that she had to at least try one. Amy was about to shut the idea down, but before she had the chance Kylie told her that it was time for some rebellion, she was 17 years old after all. She had told Kylie at the time that no, she wasn't going to smoke. It was a dangerous thing to do, and if she wanted to live long enough to become the youngest female captain, then she couldn't get lung cancer and die.

But she read somewhere that smoking cigarettes, although dangerous to your health, helped reduse anxiety. And she was desperate for something to help that didn't include meditating and chewing gum constantly. So she pulled one out, and lit it with the lighter that she had gotten to light candles around the house when the power went out a few months ago. Even though she spent the most time coughing her guts out, she noticed that afterwards, she felt a bit more relaxed.

(A few weeks later, when Kylie and Amy sat at a playground a few minutes away from Kylie's house and Amy had finished ranting about her parent's expectations of her grades, Amy took out a cigarette from a new pack and lit it. Kylie didn't say anything, just gave her a weird look as her best friend took a drag).

**Then we got tattoo's by the coast**   
**And I just stood there like a ghost**

She could say that she wasn't in the right mind, that she had too much to drink and her sense of judgement wasn't exactly there, but she hadn't touched a drop of alcohol that day. And if you told 14 year old Amy that she would be getting a tattoo with a couple of friends at a parlor that probably havent been clean in a few years, she would start stress braiding. But here she was, her neck was getting sterilized, and the equipment sat ready on a tray and as much as she knows she should feel nervous, she doesn't. She doesnt feel anything, really. Even though she knew she stood here, waiting to get a tattoo of her abuela's name that was gonna be there permanently, she doesnt really feel present. It's weird being there, but at the same time not. Amy can vaguely hear her friends holler and say "go Amy!" as the buzzing from the tattoo machine starts, but she doesn't really pay attention to it. It's weird to her that she's not freaking out in some way or another, and that the slight sting in her neck doesn't bother her, but she likes it. There's rarely a day where she doesn't stress out over something, so she takes what she can get.

(Of course, when she woke up the next day and realizes that the tattoo artist had spelled her abuela's name horribly wrong, she made an appointment to get it removed).

**Maybe I'm an old soul trapped in a young body, maybe you don't really want me there at your birthday party**   
**I'll be there in the corner, thinking right over every single word of the conversation we just had**

Rosa wasn't exactly the most affectionate person, you could tell after spending just a few minutes with her, but Amy couldn't help but think that she had done something wrong. Amy was known to overthink, okay, if you could compete in the olympics with overthinking, Amy Santiago would have so many gold medals to her name.

It was Rosa's birthday, and everone knows that she hates any kind of special attention just because she's a year older, but somehow she had let Gina throw her a birthday party at Shaw's without any protests.   
(Amy thinks they have a thing going on, but she's not gonna comment on it in fear of getting punched by Rosa and Gina).

But back to the point, Rosa seemed more short with her today. She had semi-long conversations with everyone, including Hitchcock and Scully, but with Amy it had been short answers and curt nods. So she had decided to sit in the corner, farest away from the commosion and tried to think about what she did wrong. Even though she sat there almost all night, nothing came to mind, so she sighed and walked over to Rosa to confront her.

She hadn't done anything wrong, she found out, she had just wished Rosa a happy birthday a few too many times, she was relieved.

**So why am I like this, why am I like this, why am I like this, why am I?**   
**Why am I like this, why am I like this, why am I like this, why am I?**   
**Why am I like this, why am I like this, why am I like this, why am I?**

After she got home from therapy, she ran straight up to the room she shared with one of her brothers and slammed the door. She didn't understand why this happened to her. Why her and not one of her seven brothers? Why her, and not the girl who decided to bully Amy for as long as she could? Why did this happen to her, when she was at least a semi good person?

Getting diagnosed with not only anxiety, but also OCD was one of the worst things she thought could happen to her. She didn't understand how she was sick when she felt perfectly fine. Sure, there were days where she would miss the bus because she had to go back and forth from the house to the bus stop because she was never sure if she had turned the stove off, or locked the door. But she couldn't exactly make the nagging voice in her head stop. And yeah, sometimes she took too many breaths in a short amount of time, and it felt like her head and her chest was gonna explode at the same time, but those moments (panic attacks, her therapist had called them) passed.

Amy had her future planned out, she knew was she wanted to be and how she was gonna get there, but getting diagnosed with anxiety and OCD at 16 was a gigantic bump in the road to her.

When her brother eventually came home and saw her in their room, visibly upset, he asked her what was going on. And as she started talikg about what she had been told, she started crying and explaining that it made her feel abnormal. Like a freak.

She started crying harder when he hugged her, and explained that she wasnt abnormal, and that she could get through this.

**I saw a girl crying on the train**   
**Gin and tonic from a can to ease the pain**

She was on her way home from a date with Jake when she saw her.

('Date', she still can't believe she's dating Jake Peralta, the guy who eats candy for all of his meals and spends a lot of time teasing her).

The girl on the train, (no, not the movie Starring Emily Blunt. Although it is a good one) who's crying and holding a cand of gin and tonic. She was pretty, Amy had to admit, even with mascara down her cheeks and lipstic smeared. When the pretty girl noticed that Amy was looking, Amy looked away and tried to hide the slight blush on her cheeks from embarrasment with her scarf.

**And I never asked if she was okay**   
**She just got up and walked away**

She figured that it probably was rude to stare at a girl who was obviously miserable without saying something, so after mapping out how the conversation could go in her mind, she was ready to start taliking. But before she got to ask if the girl was okay, she was walking away toward the doors.

Amy slinked back in her seat, and hoped that by staring she didn't make the girl's day worse, that was the last thing she wanted.

**It's like I'm looking down from the ceiling above**   
**Never in the moment, never giving enough**

Hearing stories from the nine nine of their weekly outings as a group, Amy couldn't help but feel a little left out in a way. Yeah, it was fun to listen to the crazy stuff the squad did while intoxicated, but she wishes she was more a part of the group. She'd been working there for a few months now, and has still not gotten any close to any of the other detectives. Rosa scared the living crap out of her, Boyle wouldn't shut up about his disgusting food, Hitchcock and Scully were just.... weird, Jake infuriates her and Gina isnt' even a detective, but it doesn't stop her from insulting Amy every chance she gets. The only person the thinks she could get along with is Terry, but she doesn't really know all that much about yoghurt and working out so keeping a conversation going was kind of tough.

She felt like she saw everyone doing their stuff together, while she did her stuff alone. And she tries to brush it off and remind herself that she has Kylie and she doesn't need new friends, and she pushes away the feeling of wanting to have something that at least resemlances a connection to the rest of the squad.

At the same time as she wants to go out more, and be a part of the group, she knows theyr ethe spontaneous kind of people. Amy wasn't like that. In fact, she was the polar opposite, she needed everything to be planned out if she didn't want to go up the Santiago stress scala. So she thinks that maybe it's for the best that theyre not all best friends with her.

(They invite her out with them later that week, she says yes. As stressful as it was going out with them, it was also the most fun she'd had since starting at the nine nine).

**Let's go out and shout the words we never said**   
**I got my mistakes on loop inside my head, inside my head**

Jake asks her to tell him something no one knows about her, and she gives him a weird look. They've been parters for five years now, probably, but she doesn't think they're at that level yet. When she doesn't say anything he continues by saying that since they're spending most of the 'date' conducting surveillance, he deserves to know some of the nitty gritty stuff.

Amy thinks about it, she knows she can trust him, and that he will let it go if she really doesn't want to say something. But something comes up in her mind that she hasn't told anyone before, barely even said itout loud to herself, so she lookes over to him and opens up her mouth to talk.

"I'm bisexual", she says, and quickly looks down. Everytime she thinks about it, she feels embarrassed, even though she knows its nothing to be embarrassed abaout and that she should feel proud about who she is, she can't help but feel uncomfortable talking about it.

Jake interrupts her train of thoughts when he asks if she's never told anyone about ot before, when she says no he say that he feels honored. He tells her that he sees how uncomfortable she feels, and that being a part of the LGBT+communtity isn't a bad thing and that she should shout it from the rooftops. She laughs and asks if he's crazy, but he smiles at her and tells her that no, he isn't crazy. He asks her to shout it out right then and there (although not super loud, since they're trying to conduct surveillance after all). She laugh but does it, and as awkward and embarrassed she feels, she can't help but acknowledge the fact that it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i rushed it at the end there, sorry 
> 
> please comment what you think, it would mean a lot! :)


End file.
